Palestinian PM to Haaretz: We will have a state next year – Haaretz – Israel News

Relaying Passover greetings to the Jewish community, Fayyad hopes Israelis will also participate in the celebrations for the birth of a new state.”The time for this baby to be born will come,” he says, “and we estimate it will come around 2011.

Fayyad, who has positioned himself at the forefront of popular opposition to occupation, criticizes Israel’s policies on protests at Bil’in and Na’alin and for targeting demonstrators. “It is expecting too much of Palestinians not to react,” he says.

“It is the right of an oppressed nation to say ‘enough’,” says Fayyad. “No one should be expected to stand for injustice, not least the Palestinians, who have endured long decades of occupation. Is it not what Gandhi stood for, what Martin Luther King stood for?

“We need to lift each other up, not drag each other down. You need a full understanding of where the other side is coming from. I maintain that we have that, we understand that these are completely different, diametrically opposed narratives. I don’t expect, ever, for our narrative to be accepted by Israel, but likewise, for Netanyahu to say that the Israeli historical narrative is basis for a just settlement, is expecting too much. ”